07 Saturn Sky LE5 2.4 Turbo project

[slvrsky07]

Originally Posted by NGKTECH

Thanks again for all your help with this, I'm sure I'll still have more questions with tuning lol.

After work last night I got the little odds and ends finished up and took the car for a 7 mile drive and I drove it into work today too which is just a few miles. I need to put about 60 more miles on it so I can refill with premium and work on tuning.

The magnaflow exhaust sounds awesome!

You are very welcome! Just text me if you're having issues with the tuning part once you get ready for that. The how to guide should get you going though.

I love the sound of the magnaflow. It was a bit loud for me when it was N/A, but it sounds awesome when you add the turbo and some boost! It was worth the $700 for the catback!

[NGKTECH]

Originally Posted by moorethanenuff

FINALLY LOL! Please post ASAP your impression of before vs after modification hp...final $ total and would you recommend this custom turbo over a ddm supercharger kit or Ls conversion. Thanks and nice job following this project all the way through from start to finish.

I spent just a touch over $3,000 for everything. I keep an excel file of every penny spent, where I spent it, and the date. Shoot me a PM with your Email and I'll send you the Excel file.

However, that includes $1000 for a TIG welder, so really if you have a friend that can weld for you or even pay someone to weld the aluminum for you then you could do the same for only $2k. (a Harbor freight flux core MIG is only $100 or you could get a chinese TIG that will do stainless but not aluminum for $3-500). I also purchased the magnaflow used for $300 which doesn't have to be purchased, you could make your own exhaust for cheaper or just run an open dump.

You could also use mild steel for the intercooler piping and downpipe instead of aluminum and stainless like I did to keep the costs down as well.

Because it's not fully tuned I can't beat on it yet but I can assure you it'll be a night and day difference.

If you don't have fab skills or have never undertaken a project like this it might be better to buy a kit where everything already fits and is made to work together. I easily have 80 hours of my time into this project and I've built a few other turbo setups before. I thought it would be much easier than it was.

Eventually my plan is to do a LSX swap but with all the work that went into this I'm hoping to keep this setup a couple years first.

[NGKTECH]

Here are some pics of the bronze/aluminum bracket I made and of the car finished (for now at least).

[SCdyne]

Tuning will be very fun.. for one thing record BARO and figure out why it changes when you enter boost. Talk about chasing your tail trying to get cold start and operating temp idle to behave..
What is the diameter of the tube you used that the MAF is in?

[NGKTECH]

Originally Posted by SCdyne

Tuning will be very fun.. for one thing record BARO and figure out why it changes when you enter boost. Talk about chasing your tail trying to get cold start and operating temp idle to behave..
What is the diameter of the tube you used that the MAF is in?

tube diameter is 2.5", so it's pretty close to stock. slvrsky07 let me use his dyno tuned map and so far it works pretty well (once warmed up), but definitely needs some for cold starts on my car. Tomorrow I should be able to get the wideband hooked up, a fresh tank of 93 in and hopefully start tuning.

[NGKTECH]

Update from the weekend:

Saturday I was trying to figure out why the car was still smoking so I pulled the intercooler piping to have a peek in the intercooler only to find about 1.5” of oil in the intercooler. This oil was from when I had the oil line plugged at the engine. So I pulled the intercooler and cleaned it all up and reinstalled. Next I pulled the downpipe which was clean as a whistle with only carbon but no signs of oil. So at this point I knew the turbo was fine and the issue was oil that was still trapped in the exhaust from before. So I cleaned out the exhaust and reinstalled then took the car for a 100 miles test drive Saturday and all was well, no more smoke.

Next I installed the two step colder plugs and then finished hooking up the AFX wideband (installed it in the glove box). I then wanted to make a filter for the turbo, so I purchased a large flat panel paper air filter and cut out a 5” diameter circle and cut two pieces of wire mesh to sandwhich the filter in between and installed it on the 3” turbo inlet with a hose clamp. However there wasn’t enough area for the engine to breathe and so the car was making little no boost. So I had to remove this and I have to find a real cone filter that will fit in the limited space I have.

I was able to tune the cold start perfectly on the car, and now the car starts and runs just like stock, you wouldn’t even know it’s modded. AFR’s under full throttle dip down into the low to mid 10’s at times so that will need to be resolved on the dyno in a few weeks but other than that the car runs perfectly without any studders, and I couldn’t be happier.

[NGKTECH]

Sunday cleaned it up and added wheel stripes, painted the brake calipers, and some general all around cleanup from sitting in the garage the last month.

[Elff]

WOW,

Hell of a DIY thread!!!

Great Job.

[NGKTECH]

Originally Posted by Elff

WOW,

Hell of a DIY thread!!!

Great Job.

Thanks! It was a lot of work but a lot of fun too.

[SCdyne]

Spend a few extra bucks and relocate the power steering tank over the battery. Either get one of the relocation kits from a forum contributor or make one up from parts.
I purchased a KRC Reservoir tank and some power steering lines to take care of it.

Then you will have room to run a filter tube out from the turbo and over the wheel well, though technically there should still be room to run it below the BOV and in front of the engine.
Check out a few images of other systems for examples.. Also if you wanted to with a relocated intake pipe you could recirculate the BOV to it..


Post some screen caps of a run up from HPT or even a log..

running rich is good with a new system.. it's easy to back of fuel and not so easy to rebuild an engine from not enough fuel..

[NGKTECH]

Originally Posted by SCdyne

Spend a few extra bucks and relocate the power steering tank over the battery. Either get one of the relocation kits from a forum contributor or make one up from parts.
I purchased a KRC Reservoir tank and some power steering lines to take care of it.

Looks like I'll make up a bracket and relocate the PS pump for sure, looks stupid simple. Thanks for the suggestion

[NGKTECH]

Just a little update: The new combo has about 750 miles on it so far and is running great, I haven't ran into any issues with it yet. It's just running the wastegate boost pressure, which is 6-7 psi for now. I did intall a manual boost controller, but I never got a chance to throw it on the dyno to crank up the boost and really tune it like I wanted to, but that will happen this spring.

Going to be putting it away for the winter in the next week or two. Over the winter I have a nice aluminum catch can I'll be throwing on, maybe an aluminum intake manifold, and hopefully some custom gauge faces. Pretty happy with the setup so far though, it's much more fun to drive now. I estimate RWHP is maybe around 230-240 right now.

[NGKTECH]

Here's some pics with the red wheel stripes and the brake calipers painted up.

[Ruination]

Great work!

I'm interested to see how the turbo holds up. Got any vids of the car?

[NGKTECH]

Originally Posted by Ruination

Great work!

I'm interested to see how the turbo holds up. Got any vids of the car?

Thanks, put a little over 800 miles on it since completion and it runs great so far. Unfortunately I just put it away for the winter yesterday. Plan to do some little odds and ends like relocating the PS reservoir, fabbing an intake, and hooking up the new catch can I purchased over the winter but this car will take a backseat to another project I plan to work on this winter.